Busy, distracted by work and other issues, blah, blah, blah. You know how these things go.

Then I got hit by perhaps the corniest inspiration on the face of the earth.

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, radio stations like to bombard you with all the love songs they think you can possibly stand. A grinch I am not, but I like to rock out when I'm driving, and all that soft, slow stuff makes me flip the station faster than you can say "talk radio". A couple of days ago, though, I got caught on the tail end of a song I liked by the Foreigner track "I Want To Know What Love Is". I let out a snort, then said to no one in particular, "Wouldn't we all?" Later on that night, the song replayed in my mind a few times (because that's how earworms work, unfortunately), and I realized that the song was such a hit because it stated a profound truth in an extremely, almost excessively simple way. A man has been hurt many times, but he wants to try again, hopefully missing any landmines on the way. What he would like, he says in the song, is some kind of map or guidebook that would tell him what he is looking for and how to get there.

It's like that with us singles. Been around a few times, not all of them pleasant. Wouldn't mind getting out there and trying again, but so many considerations. One of the biggest considerations is where to start.

I have to say I like the way singer Howard Jones sang the question: What is Love, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?

The question is not as cynical as it sounds, and really neither am I.

A point of reference for me as to what Love is, is the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians in the Bible. To me, it makes some very good all around points about what love is, and is not, and how you treat people when love is involved. It also goes far beyond romantic relationships into the larger kinds of love. I have a great deal of affection for the New International Version, so that's the translation I'll be working from here.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

What I have always understood from this particular passage was that while there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and can do a lot of things, if they are not doing it from a place of love, it means nothing. If you knew, beyond a doubt, that you stood to gain absolutely NOTHING from your efforts, but that maybe, just maybe, you might help one person, would you do it anyway? That might be a little on the extreme side of examples, but a small sample of what it means to use your gifts and talents out of love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This passage is the one most often read at weddings, for the obvious reason that it lays out in very plain language how we are to treat each other in day to day relationships. We need to demonstrate patience with, and kindness towards one another. (As difficult as I know this can be, because there are people that will go out of their way to work our LAST nerve!) When we love each other, there is no need for envy, or bragging, and among real friends, pride never enters into the conversation. Not dishonoring others and not being self seeking are two sides of the same coin: one example might be gossiping about someone else in order to bring down others estimation of them in order to bring yourself up in the eyes of those same people. No, you are not to be happy when bad things happen to people you don't like, but be happy when the truth comes out for truths sake, nothing else. With love, the urge is always there to protect, trust, hope and persevere. These last four are much harder for those who have been hurt (or manipulated), but if they are thought of as goals, rather than insurmountable obstacles, they may be achievable.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

We all grow and change over time. Very few of us look, act or think the same as we did when we were children, and for good reason. We know more than we did then, we can reason, and we have more self control than we used to. Well some of us do. The one thing that never changes is Love. Perfect love, without flaw or defect (or price or hidden agenda or any of the modern equivalents) will always, we hope, come to drive out the imperfect, shed light on dark corners, and answer questions we've always had. This is what we'd like to think. What we dream of. What we hope for.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I think so anyway.

*Just a note: Although I dissected a Bible verse on love for this weeks blog post, this is not a dismissal of other points of view. I welcome discussion of all points of view and any and all forms of intolerance will be given the hard side eye and comments deemed abusive towards ANY POV (this means YOU!) will be deleted. You have been warned.